Former Hollyoaks star Gemma Atkinson has responded to a troll who criticised her for putting her newborn baby in the utility room.
The 38-year-old actor gave birth to her second child Thiago, with fiancé Gorka Marquez in July and shared some advice with her followers on Instagram on how to help a baby get to sleep quicker.
This morning (August 27), the Bury actor and influencer posted on her Instagram story saying she found that formula helped her four-year-old daughter Mia, sleep better when she was younger.
However, it wasn’t this helpful hack that rattled the troll. During the video, Gemma said that she will be doing the same thing with Thiago when he’s old enough to digest the milk better.
She said: “That’s just what I’m going to do with Thiago. He’s really good at self-soothing anyway. He’s in the utility with the dryer on chilling. It worked for Mia, she was and is a cracking little sleeper.
“I’m just a kind of don’t overcomplicate anything while you have to kind of parent, which may drive some people mad.”
A user replied to Gemma’s story writing: “Why is the utility toom with the dryer on? WTF?
“The air or lack of air in that warm room can’t be good for him and such a bad habit to give him. Let him get used to all the other natural day to day sounds! Shocked!”
Addressing the troll, Gemma screenshotted and posted the messages, calling the reaction ‘a little bit dramatic’, and adding the jokey caption: ‘I’ll pop him in the shed. Or in the squirrel house!”
Gemma explained that the dryer is situated in the very other end of the room so Thiago “is not trapped in with unbearable heat at the Sahara dessert.”
She concluded: “Chill, breath. It’s Sunday, go have a roast dinner and relax.”
Research has found that white noise, or similar sounds like the noise of a dryer or a fan, can be a useful tool to help newborns and babies get the quality sleep they need.
In terms of formula feeding helping babies sleep better and longer, formula takes longer for a baby’s system to digest than breastmilk so need to be fed less.
However, there is little research to suggest there is a direct link between formula feeding and longer sleep at night.
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here